A baby girl, who had the world’s first heart “stent” procedure in the womb was discharged from hospital on Friday and went home 17 days after her birth.

Baby Grace Vanderwerken received the tiny stent while still in her mother’s womb at 30 weeks into the pregnancy on November 7th, and was born on January 10th, weighing 4.2kg with a full head of dark hair.

Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG has received approval from the European Union for Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate) use to prevent influenza in children between the ages of one to 12 years, the firm said on Tuesday.

Tamiflu, which is also being stockpiled by governments to ward off a bird flu pandemic, is approved in Europe, Japan and the United States as a prescription treatment for seasonal flu.

Research indicates that the vast majority of working women who develop breast cancer return to their job after treatment and it helps to have an accommodating employer.

“Working women who develop breast cancer can be encouraged to know that they can maintain a high quality of life after a breast cancer diagnosis because over 80 percent of employed women in our study returned to their same job position within one year of their cancer diagnosis,” study chief Dr. Reynard R. Bouknight told Reuters Health.

At least 10 percent of the first 1,000 people executed in the United States since 1977, were severely mentally ill, Amnesty International said in a report issued on Monday.

The London-based human rights organization, which opposes all forms of capital punishment, said the practice of putting to death people with serious mental illnesses offends international standards of decency.

Officials in northern Iraq said on Tuesday they were treating 12 patients suspected of having bird flu as a World Health Organisation (WHO) team prepared to travel to the area to give urgent assistance.

Iraq’s health minister said on Monday the country fears it had its first human bird flu victim after preliminary test results showed a 14-year-old Iraqi girl who died two weeks ago had the H5N1 virus.

For women with endometriosis who undergo assisted fertilization procedures, treatment with a hormone that decreases the body’s production of testosterone and estrogen a few months before the procedure quadruples the chance of successful pregnancy, according to a review of randomized trials—but data on side effects is lacking.

Endometriosis is a painful condition that occurs when the tissue that normally lines the uterus grows outside the uterus, often in pelvic and abdominal areas were it is not supposed to grow. Endometriosis is a leading cause of infertility—up to 40 percent of women with this condition are unable to conceive.

Researchers have identified a new human virus that increases fat deposits and, paradoxically, reduces triglyceride levels in animals, according to a report in the American Journal of Physiology—Regulatory, Integrative, and Comparative Physiology.

These findings could have important clinical implications for understanding and preventing obesity in humans, the authors suggest.

Repetitive magnetic stimulation of the brain may be an effective and safe long-term maintenance therapy for some patients with major depressive disorder, results of a small study suggest.

“There is growing evidence to support the short-term antidepressant effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), but few published data pertain to the maintenance treatment of patients with DSM-IV diagnosed major depressive disorder,” write Dr. John P. O’Reardon and colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene this week announced that depression in senior citizens is “a serious and under diagnosed condition.”

An innovative, year-old program at Montefiore Medical Center may offer a model for identifying and treating the homebound elderly with depression. The program trains all of its home care agency staff—nurses, social workers and therapists—to identify patients with depression and refer them to a Montefiore psychiatrist who provides treatment in the patient’s home.

Healthier eating habits could make a big difference in the epidemic of high blood pressure in the U.S., according to a report from the American Heart Association.

Over the past 10 years, studies have bolstered evidence that diets rich in fruits and vegetables and low in sodium can lower a person’s blood pressure, the AHA concludes in a scientific statement published in its journal Hypertension.

Although women over age 70 are rarely offered surgery to treat their breast cancer, a new review of recent studies suggests surgery works better than hormone therapy to stop the progression of breast cancer in older women with operable tumors.

Although there was no significant difference in how long the women lived after having either surgery or first-line hormone therapy such as tamoxifen only, two of the studies found that women can go longer without their breast cancer becoming worse if they have surgery.